Cognitive Psychology Commons^™

Cognitive Effort Avoidance In Veterans With Suicide Attempt Histories, James M. Bjork, Chelsea S. Rooney, Lisa K. Straub, David M. N. Garavito, Andrew Westbrook

Articles

Suicide attempts (SA) are increasing in the United States, especially in veterans. Discovering individual cognitive features of the subset of suicide ideators who attempt suicide is critical. Cognitive theories attribute SA to facile schema-based negative interpretations of environmental events. Over-general autobiographical memory and facile solutions in problem solving tasks in SA survivors suggest that aversion to expending cognitive effort may be a neurobehavioral marker of SA risk. In veterans receiving care for mood disorder, we compared cognitive effort discounting and evidence-gathering in a beads task between veterans with (SAHx+; n = 26) versus without (SAHx-; n = 22) a history …

Decision Making, Julia Nolte, David M. N. Garavito, Valerie F. Reyna

Chapters in Books

Choice is ubiquitous, from small decisions such as whether to bring an umbrella to life-changing choices such as whether to get married. Making good decisions is a lifelong challenge. Psychologists have long been fascinated by the mechanisms that underlie human decision making. Why do different people make different decisions when offered the same choices? What are common decision making errors? Which choice option is the “best” and why? These questions are addressed in this chapter.

We first outline models and theories of decision making, defining key concepts and terms. We then describe the psychological processes of decision makers and how …

Feeling At Home: Learning, Law, Cognitive Science, And Narrative, Lea B. Vaughn

Articles

What is the "how and why" of law's affinity for narrative? In order to explain why the use of stories is such an effective teaching and presentation strategy in the law, this paper will consider theories and accounts from cognitive as well as evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and, briefly, cultural anthropology. This account seeks to address "how" narrative helps us learn and use the law as well as "why" we are so compelled to use stories in teaching and in practice.

Brain science, simplified here, suggests that the first task is to grab someone's attention. Emotionally charged events are more likely …